Memory
by Cowgirl-CJ
Summary: Even when she's not around, she's burned into your memory. JS implied. Character death.


I won't lie, this is a very sad piece. I tried to get into Jack's head a little bit. Tell me what you think.

Title: Memory  
Fandom: Without a Trace  
Pairing: Jack/Sam  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: Well, brief mention of "Fallout", but nothing major  
Warning: Character death  
Disclaimer: I don't own WaT or anything WaT related. Aside from my season 1 DVDs.

The mind is a tricky thing. It can send subsconcious messages to you, completely out of your control. It can pick and choose what it remembers and what it forgets. It's a filter, it's a burden.

You don't forget their names; their faces. They remain imprinted on your soul, constantly haunting your nights and your days. You wonder what more you could have done for them, what you missed that could have saved them from their undeserved fate. You wonder where you went wrong.

But you figure you've gone wrong in many parts of your life. You fail in almost every role you take on. Son, husband, father. Hell, sometimes you doubt your ability to lead as well. Each mistake you've made weighs down on your heart until all you feel is the losses, and never the wins.

You reach a point where your faults are all you know. Your ability to feel anything but grief and sorrow is numbed and you'd give anything to take away that dull feeling. So you fall into her arms, and she welcomes you without question. You need her, and she needs you in return. And suddenly, you start to feel again.

The feelings run much deeper than you ever planned. You didn't expect this to happen. One day you wake up and realize that you are in love with her. And that's when you realize that you have to end it. For her sake, for their sake, and for you sake. As much as you relish these feelings, you do not deserve them, and you have to give them up.

Soon you start to forget the feel of her skin, the taste of her lips, her warmth. The harder you struggle to remember the little details, the more they slip away from you, like a fleeting dream that you can't remember the ending to. Maybe because there is no ending, or maybe the ending is just too much to deal with. So you allow your hand to brush against hers discreetly, and you stand a little too close. And it's all for your selfish benefit.

Then you almost lose her. And that's the point when you realize how deep your love for her runs. You willingly give up your life for hers. And all you can think of is her well-being. You know that you cannot go on without seeing her every day, without the subtle touches and the heated looks. You realize you can't breathe if she can't. You realize that she is so much a part of you now, that going on without her is not an option. So you do what you have to, and do so without the regrets that normally plague your life.

When you get your second chance at life, you don't choose to go back to her. You instead choose to go where you are needed most; where you are morally obligated to be. You try to love your wife, but your heart will always lie elsewhere. You know it, and she knows it, and the rift between you remains intact. All the while, you quietly love the one that you shouldn't from afar.

Some cases you can recall with vivid clarity. You know when they disappeared, who last saw them, what their favorite color was, and what they ate before they went missing. Most times, the cases hold something significant; something that relates to something or someone in your own life. Sometimes its the investigation itself that is burned ruthlessly into your memory.

You're checking an old, rundown apartment building. You tell her to take the hallway to the left, while you clear the hallway leading to the right and an emergency exit. The only sounds in the old building is the sound of your shoes treading carefully; slowly. Then the shots echo violently off the plaster walls that could use some attention. Your head whips around quickly while your stomach hits the floor.

You run in the direction of the shots, your heart pounding at the possibilities. You call out her name, your voice broken and scared. You can't lose her, not now, not again. She's lying prone on the ground, her chest rising and falling in a labored fashion. An eternity flashes by before you drop to her side, attempting to stop the flowing blood that stains your hands. The blood will never wash off. Her life is seeping through your fingers as you vainly attempt to save her. She mumbles your name, the way she would when the alarm clock went off and you'd have to give her that extra nudge to wake her up. One of your hands fumbles into your coat pocket as you call 911, shouting desperate words at the operator. Once you hang up, you attempt to soothe her; tell her everything is going to be all right, to hang on. Your words are shaky and scared and sound like lies to your own ears. She smiles up at you sadly and tells you that it's okay, that it doesn't hurt. You repeat over and over that you're sorry, that you love her, and that she can't leave you. Her smile never wavers as she replies that she loves you, too, and that it's gonna be ok. She leaves your life quietly with that sad smile on her face. When the paramedics finally enter the hallway, they find you cradling her lifeless form close to your broken heart, howling your grief for all the heavens to hear.

During her funeral, you stand in the back corner, and everyone avoids you. They notice how much you've aged in a few days. They notice how much pain your dark eyes hold. They notice how much you've died on the inside. No one knows exactly what to say to you, and you're glad that you don't have to deal with empty sympathies and pitiful looks. When they lay her in the ground, you know your heart is going along with her. You're no more alive than she is.

It's not much of a wonder that you hit the bottle hard, giving everything you have to forget the touch of her skin, the taste of her lips, her warmth. It hurts to remember, to breathe, to live. You'd sell your soul to get her back for a few minutes. You'd give everything you had just to be rid of this black pain for a little while and to remember how life is supposed to feel. Your government issued handgun feels cold and heavy against you palm as you run the barrel across you cheek, down your jaw, descending towards you neck. You remember when she traced similar patterns with fascinated hands. The cold metal doesn't override the pain, the dark emptiness left behind by her death. But you can't pull the trigger, because deep down in your heart, you know that's not what she would want.

You visit her grave often, no matter how much it kills you inside to do so. You consider it your punishment for letting her down; for putting her through hell; for loving her. You go on with your life, you do your job, you love your kids. But you never move on. No one in your life compares to her. Somedays you pretend she's waiting for you at home. Others your acceptance of reality leaves you bitter and heartbreakingly sad. In the end, you're not sure whether you want your mind to forget her or cherish her memory. All you know is that she's gone and nothing you can do will change that. In any case, all you want is for that sad smile to fade from your memory forever, leaving only the words spoken as they floated through that empty hallway, through eternity, through heaven and hell.

"I love you, Samantha."  
"I love you, too, Jack."


End file.
